Through a Window (29 page)

It is not only infants who are sometimes intimidated by Gigi. Even adolescents are often nervous. For Gigi has become a strong and aggressive female, quite capable of putting most adolescent males firmly in their places. Although it is a fact that male chimpanzees attack more often than females do, this does not mean that there is not an aggressive streak in females. Indeed, many adolescent females go through a highly belligerent phase. But that is before they give birth. Once a female is faced with the task of nurturing a small infant, it ill behoves her to go around swaggering and fighting—she would be putting her precious baby at risk. Thus, most females become less overtly aggressive when they reach maturity.

For Gigi, however, the situation was different, for no infant arrived to temper her naturally assertive, dominant personality. In many ways she now behaves like a male. She has a vigorous charging display, and she displays often. She stands up to threats that most females would avoid and so frequently becomes involved in fights. She represents the ultimate challenge to young males who are desperately trying to dominate the community females. She sometimes accompanies the males on their boundary patrols, not only when she is fully pink but even when she is quite flat. And whereas other females (who only go when they are pink) typically trail along in the wake of the males, Gigi often plays an active role in patrolling activities. She has joined the males in the destruction of the nests of strangers, and in the attacks on females from neighbouring communities. She even took part in some of the brutal assaults during the war with the Kahama chimpanzees.

Gigi has an outstanding hunting record. She takes part in more hunts than other females and has a greater success in capturing prey. She is even able to maintain possession of a kill in the face of vigorous efforts by adult males to steal it. There was, for example, the time when she captured a juvenile colobus monkey, and hung on to the carcass like grim death despite three violent attacks by Satan and one by Sherry. During these struggles she fell to the ground three times, locked in combat with Satan, yet managed to escape and, still clutching her prey, rushed up another tree. When Sherry then seized her kill in both hands and pulled as hard as he could, she continued to maintain her grip, even when Satan displayed vigorously around and over both of them. Eventually Sherry managed to tear off the rump and hind legs. Then Gigi was finally able to eat in peace because Satan, rather than continue to try for a share of her meat, opted to follow Sherry and take some of his!

I think the males truly respect this tough and dauntless female, who has been such an integral member of their society for so long. And so, despite her idiosyncratic sexual behaviours, Gigi enjoys relaxed relationships with them and is a favourite grooming partner. Like the males she spends much time in noisy excited social gatherings, whereas most females, unless they are pink, prefer a more peaceful existence, choosing to spend days at a time with family members only and joining the larger groups merely for periodic spells of stimulation. Gigi, again like the males, spends a good deal of time in absolute solitude, whereas other females, after they have had their first baby (provided it lives) never experience real solitude again. For the rest of their lives they are always with one or more of their offspring. Having been a mother myself, I know full well that even a small baby can provide a sense of real companionship.

And so Gigi, in many ways, stands alone. For, despite her many male-like characteristics she is not a male: she has never been, and she never will be, fully integrated into the camaraderie of male society. Nor can she find companionship and comfort, as other females do, within a family. Of course she was part of a family once, but that was long ago. Even when I first knew her, when she was about eight years old, her only relative appeared to be the young male Willy Wally. And he moved away to the south with the Kahama males when the community divided.

With no infant of her own, no opportunity to create, for herself, that special group of close friends, a family unit, Gigi has instead cultivated a number of special relationships with a succession of infants. She became attracted to each of them when the infant was about one and a half years old—the age at which their mothers gave them relative freedom to interact with individuals outside the family circle. When she was with the family, and when the mother permitted it, Gigi would groom, play with or carry her current favourite. She helped to protect the infants too—she was particularly zealous in breaking up play sessions
with older youngsters when they began to get too rough. In effect she assumed the role, for one infant after another, of the traditional maiden aunt.

Those were relatively transient relationships, for as the youngsters, at around two and a half years, became increasingly boisterous and self-willed, Gigi lost interest. But more recently she developed some relationships of a more enduring nature—not only with two infants, brother and sister, but also with their mother, Patti. Gigi and Patti spent a fair amount of time together even before Patti gave birth, and afterwards, because of certain inadequacies in Patti's maternal skills, Gigi, for the first time ever, was able to make a really significant contribution to the raising of a child.

Patti immigrated into the Kasekela community in the early seventies, so we knew nothing of her early life. In 1977 her first pregnancy ended in mystery: either the baby was stillborn, or it died during the first few days of its life. At that time Passion and Pom were still hunting newborn infants and Patti's may well have been one of their victims. About a year later she gave birth to an apparently healthy male infant who died as a result of maternal incompetence, for Patti had absolutely no idea how to look after a baby. She did support him with one hand during travel, but sometimes it was his rump that she pressed to her belly so that his head bump, bump, bumped along the ground. Once she trailed him after her by one leg. Sometimes, as she sat feeding, she reached forward for a fruit in such a way that he was crushed between her thigh and belly and made strange high-pitched noises of distress. It was hardly surprising that the baby was dead before the week was out.

A year later Patti gave birth again, to another male whom we named Tapit. Although she was a better mother this time around (which was hardly difficult!) I believe that her infant owed his survival as much to his own tenacity and toughness of spirit as to Patti's care. There were so many times when it seemed that she
simply didn't know how to deal with him. Often, for example, she failed to cradle him properly, and then, as she sat grooming or feeding, he would fall back onto the ground. She would let him lie there until he whimpered, whereupon she would quickly gather him up. Once she leapt from one tree to another with Tapit held back to front, his head facing her rear. He screamed loudly during this performance, and when she reached her destination she seemed concerned and sat cradling him—but he was still upside-down, with his feet under her chin and his head in her groin. During his early months incidents of this sort were quite commonplace and Tapit was often to be heard screaming as his mother travelled through the trees.

Because he was cradled so inappropriately, Tapit often had difficulty in reaching Patti's nipples. And in this, most basic of his needs, Patti seemed quite unable to help. As he nuzzled frantically in the wrong place he would whimper, then scream, and though she often looked down at him and watched him intently she almost never adjusted his position to make things easy for him. Even when he finally located a nipple and began to nurse, it was ten to one that a sudden movement of hers would jerk the hard-won reward from his mouth.

By the time he was six months old he was easily able to locate his mother's breasts. But now he was confronted with a new difficulty. One day I followed them to a shady spot in the forest. Patti stretched out to rest and soon Tapit began to suckle. For a few moments all was well—and then Patti began to laugh. I watched in amazement as, chuckling ever louder, she pulled him from her nipple and tickled him, making gentle nibbling movements on his head and face. But Tapit wanted milk, not play. Eventually, whimpering, he succeeded in fighting his way back to the nipple—only to be pulled away again by his still-laughing mother. For some further minutes he tried to get his own way but then gave up, at least for a while. When he suckled next, about an hour later, Patti didn't even try to interrupt, but she
showed the same strange play response to suckling on a number of subsequent occasions. Once he struggled for over seven minutes, whimpering all the time, while his mother tickled him and chuckled. Why she behaved in this extraordinary fashion is hard to understand. It is a ploy used by a few mothers during the peak of weaning—they play vigorously with their infants to distract them when they want to suckle or ride during travel. But that is not until the youngsters are about four years old. Parti was obviously confused. Or perhaps it was just that his lips on her nipples tickled, and triggered a play response.

Patti allowed Tapit to move away from her when he was a mere four months old—as soon as he could totter. From this time on, she often left him to his own devices while she groomed or fed nearby. Sometimes, as he tried to climb towards her up a steep slope or follow her from one branch to another, he would begin to whimper, but she would usually ignore him completely. Often she did no more than glance in his direction, even if he fell a short distance and screamed. She showed the same indifference to his social development. Most mothers are careful to prevent their infants, during the first few months, from making contact with other adults. Not so Patti. When Tapit was only five months old, he climbed onto Satan during a grooming session. Tapit seemed confused and whimpered, but Patti paid no attention. Still whimpering, Tapit clambered across Satan, and soon began to scream. Only then did Patti retrieve him. Another time he tottered away from Patti and climbed a short way up a small sapling. Then he moved over to Gremlin, whimpering. Quickly she embraced him, but he pulled away and stumbled, crying louder, to Gigi. But she had not yet forged a bond with Tapit, and she ignored him. Finally, as he cried louder and louder, Patti, with a slight whimper herself, went over and gathered him up.

When Tapit was nine months old he was subjected to another of his mother's peculiar idiosyncrasies. Again, I was astounded when I saw it for the first time. He was playing in the
low branches of a tree near Patti while she fished for termites. When she was ready to leave she stood upright and, instead of putting her hand around his body and gathering him into her embrace in the normal manner, she merely seized one of his ankles and pulled. This, of course, made things very difficult for Tapit. As she continued to tug he clung ever more tightly to his branch, and soon began to scream. Her only response was to pull harder until he was forced to let go—upon which she clamped him to her belly upside-down. This happened again and again during the next couple of months.

By the time Tapit was one year old Patti occasionally wandered off, leaving her son behind. Once, for example, she gradually meandered further and further away from him as she foraged on the sweet yellow fruits of the
budyankende
bushes that cover great tracts of the lower mountain slopes in early summer. She paid no attention to his soft whimpers as he struggled to follow. After a while she was almost out of sight and only when he screamed really loudly did she glance round, then return to gather him up. Four months later she left him on the ground, where he was playing quietly by himself, and climbed a tree to feed. After five minutes Tapit tried to follow his mother, but the climb was too difficult and he began to whimper. Patti did not respond. Even when his cries got louder his mother only looked down at him. Finally Tapit threw a full-blown tantrum, screaming at the top of his voice, hurling himself about on the ground and tearing at his hair. Only then did Patti, somewhat reluctantly, pause in her feeding long enough to retrieve him.

This most unmaternal behaviour meant that, as time went on, mother and child occasionally became separated. Once I met Patti travelling with a group of males: there was no sign of Tapit. When they stopped to feed, Patti fed with them, quite calmly. It was only after fifty minutes that she suddenly seemed to "remember" that there should be an infant with her! She stopped feeding, looked all around, began to whimper, then ran back the
way she had come, crying loudly. I couldn't keep up with her—but later in the day she was seen again, safely reunited with Tapit. Another time when I was following Melissa and her family, we heard the frantic crying of a lost child. At once Gremlin hurried off in the direction of the sounds, and found and embraced the infant—Tapit, of course. She stayed with him, sometimes carrying him, until he found his mother.

When Tapit was just over a year old Gigi began to make overtures of friendship to him. I well remember the first time I saw this. Tapit, as usual, was stumbling along some ten yards behind his mother. It was late in the day when most infants get tired, and even those much older than Tapit typically insist on riding. Presently Tapit began to whimper. Patti, as usual, ignored her son, but Gigi, who had been with them all afternoon, at once went back to him, crouched, and reached her hand towards him, inviting him to climb on her back. He backed away, confused, and lay on his back, crying louder. Gigi moved away at first, but when Tapit got up, still whimpering, she again crouched beside him. And this time Tapit leapt onto her back and she carried him to Patti.

That was the start of the close relationship between them that was to play such a crucial role in Tapit's early development. Gigi, whenever she was not pink, now began to travel with Patti very often, and she lavished any amount of frustrated maternal affection on Tapit. She carried him during travel, groomed him and played with him; she was very protective of him, too. Once an adolescent male baboon, at whom Tapit had been displaying with the bristling, bouncing exuberance of infancy, suddenly lost patience, grabbed him and rolled him on the ground, then dragged him a short distance. Tapit, only just over a year old, was not surprisingly terrified and began to scream. Patti glanced over, but it was Gigi who sprang into action, raced over and gathered Tapit to her breast. Brave in the presence of his protector, Tapit pulled away from her and again bounced and stamped
towards the baboon, hair bristling, while Gigi watched benignly. Then there was the time when Gigi seized Tapit and rushed up a tree just in time to avoid a charge by Goblin. And once, when Satan attacked Patti, causing Tapit, who had been riding on her back, to scream, Gigi actually displayed and kicked out at Satan.